 | Raw Edges When Phyllis Barber's thirty-three-year marriage ended, she had to redefine herself as a woman, a mother, and an artist. Raw Edges is her moving account of the "lean years" that followed her divorce. It is interwoven with a narrative of the marriage of two gifted people that begins with "sealing" in a Mormon temple, endures through the birth of four sons and the development of two careers, and founders when the couple's personal needs no longer match their aspirations or the rigid strictures of Mormon life. Raw Edges reflects the predicament that many women experience as their marriages disintegrate and they fail to achieve their own expectations as well as those set by their society and their faith. It is also a story of hope, of how a woman overcome by grief and confusion eventually finds a new approach to life. Phyllis Barber is the award-winning author of seven books, including an earlier memoir, How I Got Cultured: A Nevada Memoir (University of Nevada Press). She taught at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA Writing Program for nineteen years and was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame in 2005. She lives in Denver. |
